Sweet Talk & Good Lies

1	Sweet Talk & Good Lies 3:12
2	Nashville's Gone Hollywood 2:57
3	Never Had a Broken Heart 4:13
4	One Man Woman Again 3:04
5	Little Chapel / T Double 2:57
6	By the Time I Get to Phoenix 2:48
7	One and Only Lover 2:31
8	Big Cars 3:30
9	The Love You Left Behind 3:11
10	If the Truth Hurts 2:21
11	Homewrecker Blues 2:48
12	Sweet Little Dangerous 3:01
13	Cry Me a River 2:57

Barnes & Noble

On her first new album since 1998's powerhouse Highways & Honky Tonks, Heather Myles ditches the cowgirl look for a more glamorized image, but the music remains unaltered: It's lean, mean, Bakersfield-tough country. And Myles sounds like the baddest badass on the block when her cowgirl-cum-Tammy drawl kicks in on an energizing shuffle ("Sweet Talk & Good Lies") or a plaintive honky-tonk lament ("Never Had a Broken Heart"). Of course Dwight Yoakam would be drawn to a gal like Myles, and he gets as good as he gives on the Spanish-flavored duet "Little Chapel," an ode to love on the wrong side of the tracks that's accented by twangy guitars and mariachi horns. In a change of pace, Myles covers two evergreens, Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and the Julie London classic, "Cry Me a River." On the beautifully done "Phoenix," she lays on a rich, heartfelt country vocal in an arrangement that mirrors the Glen Campbell original, but with a soft, weeping pedal steel supplanting the string section. "River" closes out the album on a quiet, languorous note, as Myles offers up a blues-tinged vocal that would do Patsy Cline proud. Add a merciless skewering of Music City's misguided ethos, "Nashville's Gone Hollywood" ("You won't even need a steel guitar in your watered down rock 'n' roll/You won't need the Opry/You'll be singing on Jay Leno," she sneers at all the pretty boys and hot babes passing themselves off as country), and Sweet Talk & Good Lies becomes more than merely a terrific album -- it's a statement of purpose from an artist who knows whereof she sings when it comes to bred-in-the-bone country. David McGee

All Music Guide

While there are more than a few hardy souls still recording honest-to-goodness country music in the Nash-Vegas era, not many of them are women, so it's a good thing that Heather Myles is around and making records, and her fifth album, Sweet Talk & Good Lies, finds her in typically strong form. Myles' voice is a superb honky tonk instrument, tough but evocative and capable of registering a wealth of emotions, and she and her band have mastered the nuts and bolts of the classic Bakersfield sound without sounding like they've gotten trapped in some sort of retro time warp ("Never Had a Broken Heart" even sounds like it could be a hit if country & western radio was willing to play actual country & western music). If Sweet Talk & Good Lies isn't quite as good as 1998's Highways and Honky Tonks, it's still a great showcase for Myles' gifts as a vocalist and songwriter. While Myles sounds like someone you would not want to mess with on "Sweet Little Dangerous," "Homewrecker Blues," and the title cut, she can let down her guard on "One Man Woman Again" without losing her backbone, and on her cover of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," she manages to find something new in that old chestnut. (Friend and fellow honky tonk enthusiast Dwight Yoakam even pops up to duet on the norteño-flavored "Little Chapel.") She's a great singer, a fine songwriter, knows how to make a solid record, and looks real good in a pair of torn jeans -- if Nashville can't figure out what to do with Heather Myles, they deserve everything she gives 'em in "Nashville's Gone Hollywood," while fans who love real country music will want to add this to their personal play list ASAP. Mark Deming